


Blood of the City

by ThirtySixSaveFiles



Series: City of Blood [2]
Category: Borderlands
Genre: M/M, brief allusions to blood and violence, urban fantasy au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 07:32:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8154103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirtySixSaveFiles/pseuds/ThirtySixSaveFiles
Summary: Jack didn't get where he is today by letting things slip through his grasp.





	

They say, about Handsome Jack’s city, that the streets absorb the blood before it stains the pavement. They say that if anyone ever gets to him, to Handsome Jack, that the city will crumble to its foundations. They say that the streets remember, that they have chosen Handsome Jack just as he has chosen them. They say that the city answers to him, inasmuch as it answers to anyone.

Handsome Jack doesn’t say this. He doesn’t need to. The streets speak for him.

But they didn’t always.

Jack and Timothy were born in the city, minutes apart, identical except for the dusting of freckles that developed over young Tim’s face as the toddlers grew into boys. Mother dead in childbirth and father out of the picture, they were raised by an uncaring grandmother on a diet of stories about how the world used to work and little else. Jack never paid much attention - it didn’t do to draw too much attention to yourself, in that household - until the day he solidified his hold on the city’s underworld and woke up with the sound of the city breathing in his head.

That’s the best way he was able to describe it to Tim, later, although that didn’t really do it justice.

That was the day that Jack went back to the old house in an unforgiving neighborhood, and one last time, sat at his grandmother’s knee and learned all over again about the city. The city, she said, was more than the sum of its parts. All of those lives, all of those hopes and dreams and fears lived out together in streets and alleys and buildings over years and years eventually take on a life of their own, for someone who knows how to see it. For someone who knows how to _use_ it.

“I’m going to make it big in The City.”

“Be careful out in The City.”

“There’s no place like The City.”

People capitalize it and they don’t really know why; each invocation a small drop in a wellspring just waiting for the right person.

Jack sat at his grandmother’s knee, and he listened, and he learned, and in the morning he sent a cleanup crew to get rid of what was left. Old debts needed to be paid, after all, and he had a feeling that the city - if it _was_ listening, like she had said - wouldn’t mind.

Blood has always helped things grow. That was one of the first lessons Jack remembered, one of the first that mankind had learned.

(He told Tim that she had died of natural causes, and figured that was close enough.)

It wasn’t enough to rule the city with force and influence. He needed to _own_ it, in the deepest way possible; this city was _his_ , and if there was a way to cement that into streets and the avenues and the very bones of the city itself, he was going to find it. But he was going to need help.

Lilith, Moxxi - afterward he was never sure how much they had known about what was going to happen, and by that point looking backward was something of a futile gesture. He knows that they’re still here - he _knows_ , now, a lot more than he used to - but they stay out of his way and he tolerates them. He wouldn’t be where is without them, after all. Because the city _is_ a wellspring of potential, of _power_ , if you know how to tap into it and you’re careful.

Jack figured out the first part, armed with stories and lore and a blood-driven determination. He was not as successful at the second.

In a way, though, he’s grateful for the scar - it’s an unmistakable sign of what he’s done, of what he’s _become_ . He _does_ own the city now, or the city owns him - the distinction is blurred, but it’s the outcome that matters. What matters now is that he walks the streets of his city and _knows_ it, breathes in the air and tastes the mood and the memories, heart beating in time with the slow breaths of a million lives all living at once. What matters is the _power_.

One of the oldest stories Jack remembers is that of the old kings and the land. The king and the land were one, once upon a time, his grandmother had told him, and their fates were bound up together. Jack’s not sure he can leave the city anymore even if he wants to; Jack _is_ the city, in all the ways that matter. The city gives all that it is to Jack, and all it wants is everything that Jack is in return.

It’s a fair trade, he thinks.

The city even brings him gifts, occasionally. It didn’t know what to do with Tim at first - so much like Jack but so different - but after those first harrowing moments the city seemed to settle, to accept Tim as an extension of Jack. This doesn’t make Tim happy, necessarily, but Jack will settle for Tim’s safety over his happiness. The city has brought Jack wealth, opportunity, and power beyond his wildest dreams.

And most recently, it has brought him Rhys.

The kid sighs in his sleep as if he can hear Jack thinking about him, and it’s very possible that he can, now. His changed arm shimmers in the darkness, and Jack isn’t close to puzzling that one out yet, except that it seems to be a direct conduit to the same power that lives inside Jack. Jack isn’t sure why the city drew the kid into the liminal space that night, but he has to admit that it could have chosen worse. Rhys certainly is not a hardship to look at, or to fuck - especially when the very touch of Jack’s fingers down his changed arm sends Rhys’ pulse racing and a firm grip makes his knees buckle and his eyes roll back. No one else’s touch elicits that reaction, and that’s how Jack knows that Rhys was meant for him and him alone.

Yes, the city takes care of him, as long as he takes care of it, and as he strokes a possessive hand down Rhys’ back Jack thinks that he has no intention of letting go of any of it.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at [ThirtySixSaveFiles](http://thirtysixsavefiles.tumblr.com) on Tumblr!


End file.
